No Time – Like The Present

There is no doubt about it. The older you get, the quicker time passes. And the quicker time passes, the less of it there is in which to get stuff done. This is my latest philosophical excuse for the huge gap between this post and the last one.

Ah! A thought… Maybe the link between age, and the apparent passing of time, and the ever bigger gaps between blog posts is actually some form of quantum entanglement. And maybe that means that if I write more blog posts closer together, time will slow down and I will get younger. Or at least get old slower. Or something. Of course the biggest problem with this hypothesis is that it is doomed never to be tested, because of the underlying quality of laziness that pervades my everyday existence. Ho hum. Guess I’ll just have to settle for being old and lazy.

Actually, on reflection, I know that time passes quickly for a number of reasons, and that Getting Older is only one of them. One of the best ways to slow down time is to do different stuff and go to different places. Steve Taylor refers to this in his book, “Making Time: Why Time Seems to Pass at Different Speeds and How to Control it“. He describes five laws of psychological time. The first is that Time speeds up as we get older. The second is that Time slows down when we are exposed to new experiences and environments, (because the speed of time is relative to the amount of information we absorb and process). Which almost certainly explains why our first year of living in France lasted a decade, and the last two years have zipped by in a nanosecond.

Our first year in our New Life included so much New Stuff and so much Change and Learning, that it seemed incredibly full. It was awash with a veritable flood of new experiences and environments. In comparison, since we have settled into our second French house, and got the farm sorted, so that Life ticks by in a series of slick and very regular routines, the amount of new information that we absorb has dwindled to a barely noticeable trickle. We have lived through two whole years of seasons and weather and wildlife, and we have come to know every inch of our land like the back of our wrinkly hands. We know what to expect when, and the awe-struck wonder of our first year in this strange and surprising place has segued into the comfortable ease of familiarity.

I realised this very strongly when the first signs of this impending Spring prompted me to think about writing a post on the subject. I suddenly realised that I had said it all before. I have taken so many photos of sunrises and sunsets that there is rarely anything that strikes me as unusual enough to warrant disturbing the camera from its dust-covered repose. I have written at length about all the sorts of weather, and the annual cycle of floric and faunic change that occur hereabouts. It isn’t that Life has becoming boring. It is simply that it has become customary. I know it. I know what to expect from one day to the next, and it is no longer New. And consequently I struggle to find anything new, or news-worthy, to write about.

And anyway… I guess y’all pretty much know how lovely Spring is, without me labouring the point. You know all about the feeling of warm sunshine on your face; the crocuses poking their yellow and purple noses through the gradually greening ground; the rising symphony of early morning birdsong; the orange glow of catkins in the dawning light; the overall sense that we are emerging from that long dark tunnel of winter into Life itself. For me this is the perfect time of year. Warm enough to sit outside and enjoy the lovely outsideyness, but still cool enough to keep all your comfortable clothes on, and not get sunburnt or insect-bitten. Warm enough for the pigs and llamas and cats to lie about luxuriating in the pleasantness, but still cool enough for the flies to stay in their sleepy hiding places, and for nettles not to grow.

Pretty soon we’ll be fighting to keep the burgeoning vegetation under control, and planning our activities around where the blissful shade falls at different times of day. But for now Life is just spot-on. And if I can’t expand time by living in The New, I can instead attempt to transcend time by living in The Now. And since this particular Now is one of the best Nows I know, you will have to forgive my lack of web-based reporting on existence. Because if I’m going to be in The Now, I actually have to BE IN IT, and not just writing about it. So… um… Bye for Now 🙂

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3 Responses to No Time – Like The Present

  1. Jane says:

    Excellent!

  2. chris says:

    I just knew there was going to be a good reason!

  3. Beautiful words to describe a beautiful time of year by people with kind and gentle hearts 🙂

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